Features

Everything notekpr does, area by area, with its shortcuts (Ctrl is ⌘ on a Mac). The README has the short version.

Writing

• Live-preview Markdown editor: formatting shows as you type and the syntax hides once the caret leaves the line; also a plain source mode and a reading view (Ctrl+E).
• A formatting toolbar and keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+/ lists them; ⌘ instead of Ctrl on a Mac), light, dark or system theme. Enter, ↓ or Tab in the title moves on to the text.
• Line numbers beside the text, one for each line of the Markdown, if you like (Settings → Editor; off by default) — or relative ones, as Vim's relativenumber: how far each line is from the caret's, which keeps its own number (5j goes to the 5).
• Optional Vim keys (Settings → Editor): normal, insert and visual modes (v, and V for whole lines) with a block cursor outside insert mode; the common motions and operators, counts (3dd, 12G), J to join lines, >> / << to indent, gj / gk by lines as they wrap, Ctrl+D / Ctrl+U by half a screen, and Ctrl+O / Ctrl+I back and forth between jumps (gg, G, a heading picked in the outline) — past the note's first, Ctrl+O goes back to the previous note.
• Notes as narrow or wide as you like: a slider in Settings sets the default (for this browser, or the same on all your devices), and a note's ⋯ menu gives it a width of its own, only for you.
• Tables you build with Enter and Tab, with aligned columns; one wider than the screen scrolls sideways instead of squeezing its columns. Task lists you can tick in the editor and the reading view. Nested bullet lists show their level — a dot, a ring, then a square — in the editor as in the reading view.
• Code blocks with syntax highlighting for some 35 languages, line numbers, indentation guides and a copy button. Options after the language: a file name (```bash title=deploy.sh), highlighted lines (hl=2,4-6), no line numbers (ln=false) or indentation guides (vl=false), long lines that don't wrap but scroll sideways (wrap=false) — they stay plain Markdown. A new block from the toolbar or Ctrl+Shift+`; Enter (or pasting) after an opening ``` closes the block.
• Images and other files: paste or drop them into a note — they are encrypted, uploaded and shown inline; videos and audio (![[clip.mp4]]) play there, in the editor and the reading view. They go to attachments/ in the note's folder (notes/Trip.md's to notes/attachments/), each under a name no other file of the vault has, so ![[photo.png]] finds it here and in Obsidian.
• Each file has its page: a picture, video or sound shown there (other files download, PDFs open in a tab), Used in — the notes linking to it or embedding it, the drawings showing it — and rename, move, download and the trash. A file in the tree, or a link to one, opens it.
• Callouts as GitHub and Obsidian write them: > [!tip], > [!warning] A title, > [!faq]- for one that folds (+ open). Types are case-insensitive — note, abstract, info, todo, tip, important, success, question, warning, caution, failure, danger, bug, example, quote and Obsidian's aliases; others look like a note. Each has its color and icon, in the editor and the reading view; callouts can nest. The toolbar starts one, or gives the one the caret is in another type.
• Text and background colors from the toolbar, in a palette that reads well in the light and the dark theme. They are saved as plain HTML (<span style="color: …">), so Obsidian, Typora, VS Code and other Markdown editors show them too — and colors written there (<font color>, colored highlights, any CSS color) show here in the nearest palette color.
• HTML inside notes for what Markdown can't do: fold-out sections (<details>), keys (<kbd>), sub- and superscript, centered text, sized images, tables with merged cells. Only formatting is kept — no scripts, styles, frames, forms or embeds; external images aren't loaded. The editor shows HTML rendered, like Markdown: a block until you click into it, inline tags (<kbd>, <i>, …) until the caret is on their line.
• Dates: type @today, @tomorrow or @yesterday (or pick from the menu @ opens) and the note gets that day's date, @2026-10-23 — plain text any editor reads. It shows as Today, Tomorrow or Yesterday while it is one, and as the date after that. The CLI and agents get the same (notekpr write, the gateway).
• Wiki links ([[Note]], [[Note#Heading]], [[Note|alias]]) that create the note if it's missing; renaming a note updates every link to it.

Drawings

• A drawing editor with a hand-drawn look, written in Rust and compatible with Excalidraw: a drawing looks the same on excalidraw.com, wobbles and all. Rectangles, diamonds, ellipses, arrows and lines (dragged or point by point), the pen, texts, pictures (9, or pasted or dropped), sticky notes (N), frames (F), the eraser and the laser pointer (K); colours (picks and Excalidraw's whole palette), fills (hachure, cross-hatch, solid, zigzag), stroke width and style, sloppiness, rounded edges, arrowheads, arrow types (sharp, curved, elbow), every font Excalidraw has, opacity; select, move, resize, turn, group, lock, align, distribute, layers, duplicate (Alt+drag copies); undo and redo of your own changes; Excalidraw's keyboard shortcuts (R, O, A, T, Q to keep a tool, …). Two fingers pinch to zoom on touch screens.
• Text inside shapes and on arrows and lines (double-click; Enter in a shape), wrapped and centred, the shape growing to hold it; an arrow's or line's label slides along it, in a gap of its line (Excalidraw labels arrows only: it shows a line's label where it is, the line through it). Arrows stay attached to shapes and follow them — dropped near a shape they attach to its outline (highlighted while dragged), held still over it for a moment they point inside; elbow arrows route themselves at right angles around what they connect (drag a segment to hold it, double-click to let go).
• A selected line or arrow shows its points: drag them, or the handle halfway along to bend it; Ctrl+double-click or Enter edits every point — Shift selects several, Delete removes them; ends that meet close a line.
• Sticky notes whose text shrinks to fit, with the day they were made at their foot; frames that hold what you draw or drop in them, move and clip it, renamed by double-clicking their name. A frame selected on its own is exported alone, as in Excalidraw: its PNG or SVG (or a copy) is just what is in the frame, cut to it.
• The grid (Ctrl+', part of the drawing) and snapping to other shapes' edges, centres and equal gaps (Alt+S, your own setting; Ctrl while dragging turns it off for that drag).
• Pictures are files of the vault (in attachments/ beside the drawing), stored and synced once, encrypted; drawing files written out hold them inside, as Excalidraw's do. Enter or a double click crops a picture.
• Links on elements (Ctrl+K): a web address, or [[a note]] of the vault, opened from a button by the element.
• Saved shapes, as Excalidraw's library: keep shapes from a drawing (the button with the overlapping shapes) and drop them into any other; yours, in your Personal storage, synced and encrypted between your devices; named after their first text, renamed from the pencil; Shift-click (a range) or Ctrl-click picks several, to put in side by side, export or remove at once (Esc lets them go); .excalidrawlib files imported (also dropped on a drawing) and exported (notekpr shapes ls|import|export|rename|rm); in the Markdown folder as Saved shapes.excalidrawlib, edits merged shape by shape; agents' gateway reads and adds them.
• Drawn together, live, with the vault's members: their pointers with their names, what they selected, their laser, and who is on the drawing in its header; merged when someone drew offline. A drawing's history keeps versions, shown as pictures, to restore or download.
• Drawings live in vaults, among the notes, in the file tree, and are renamed there or by their name at the top of the drawing; the vault's Drawings page shows them all as pictures ("3 of 10 drawings" when the server limits how many a vault holds). ![[Board.drawing]] in a note shows the drawing, live, and the link while the cursor is on it (the drawing's ⤓ menu copies it); notes from Obsidian that show ![[Board.excalidraw]] find the imported drawing.
• Works with Excalidraw's files: copy and paste between notekpr and excalidraw.com or Obsidian; importing a folder or Obsidian vault turns .excalidraw and Obsidian's drawings (.excalidraw.md, or any note the plugin's front matter marks as one) into drawings. Those synced as they are from a Markdown folder (so Obsidian keeps working with them) show as drawings, view-only, when opened and where a note embeds them, pictures of the vault included; "Make it a drawing" makes one notekpr's, to edit (asked first: the file goes to the trash); and files dropped on a drawing come in; export a drawing as a .drawing file, for Excalidraw (.excalidraw), for Obsidian (.excalidraw.md), SVG or PNG — the drawing kept inside, so they open again in notekpr and Excalidraw, whose own PNG and SVG exports with the scene inside open as drawings too (dropped on one, or notekpr write) — or copy it (or what is selected) as a PNG (Shift+Alt+C) or SVG. The Markdown folder keeps drawings as .drawing files (Excalidraw's JSON inside), merged element by element when edited there.
• The text in drawings is found by search, and agents read it (and draw: Excalidraw's JSON sent to a .drawing path makes a drawing).
• Each note's menu downloads it as Markdown or copies a [[link]] to it.

Organizing and finding

• Vaults, folders and a note tree with drag and drop: drop onto a folder to move something into it, or between two entries to put it there (a line shows where; folders stay above notes, and Sort A–Z undoes it). Everyone in the vault sees the same order. A note or drawing moved — or a folder moved or renamed — takes along the attachments only it uses, to attachments/ where it lands (files other notes use too stay put), and links keep finding what they found. A new note with Ctrl+Alt+N. All vaults shows each vault as a card, its settings a click away (⚙ in the corner). Each vault opens on a home page with its recently edited notes and tags; its owner can archive it while it isn't needed, or delete it.
• Icons: an emoji or a picture for each note, folder and vault. Every emoji is offered, by group, the recent ones first; search them by name or keyword (Enter takes the first found), or type or paste any emoji. An uploaded image becomes a small square picture, stored encrypted with what it is the icon of; the pictures given lately are offered again. Emoji from the command line too (it lists pictures as (picture)).
• Favorites and recently opened notes in the sidebar.
• Quick switcher (Ctrl+P) that creates the note when nothing matches; full-text search (Ctrl+Shift+F) with tag: (or #tag), folder: (or path:), title: and vault: filters and "phrases".
• A side panel beside each note (Ctrl+\): backlinks, outgoing links, unresolved links you click to create, the outline and tags.
• A graph of how your notes link, like Obsidian's (Ctrl+G): the whole vault with a filter, or the open note and its neighbours beside it. Drawings are in it too (squares), linked with the notes that show or link them and the notes their elements link to. Drag, zoom, click a note to open it.
• Quick notes: capture a thought in a second (Alt+Q, a capture page that works on phones, notekpr quick …, or a file dropped into the Markdown folder's Quick notes/). They are yours alone, in no vault, the same from every vault and device: a short list (20 unless the administrator says otherwise) to sort out by moving each to a vault, or deleting it for good.
• Move a note, or a folder with everything in it, to another vault, with the attachments its notes link to (Move to vault… in the file tree's menu or the note's ⋯ menu, notekpr mv … --to-vault).
• A trash with restore — even emptying it can be undone for a while (30 days unless the server is set otherwise), from the trash or notekpr trash undo — and the version history of every note with preview and restore.

Working together

• Share a vault as owner, admin, editor or viewer, or a single note with someone outside the vault. A vault can have several owners, all equal, and always keeps one: the last owner can't leave, nor delete their account while others use the vault, so it never goes with one person — and a vault others use suggests a second owner (a hint you can hide). Editors move notes to the trash; only owners and the vault's admins delete for good, and see the vault's activity log (who can do what). Leave a vault shared with you, or remove a shared note from your list.
• Edit the same note at the same time with live cursors, and see who else is on the note you're on. Edits merge without conflicts (CRDTs), also after working offline.
• Comments on the text, like in Notion: select some text and comment (Alt+M), in the editor or the reading view; the text gets a highlight, and clicking it opens the thread to reply, resolve, edit or delete. Viewers can comment too (the vault's owners can turn that off), comments follow the text through edits — also edits from your own editor — and a note can be shared with its comments. Also from the command line (notekpr comments, notekpr shared comments) and for AI agents, and in exports (_comments/).
• @mentions: type @ in a comment to mention a member of the vault. Their devices find it — the server never learns who is mentioned — and show it in the sidebar's mentions inbox, with a message when it arrives and, if they like, a system notification. Read on one device, read on all; notekpr mentions lists them.
• You're told when a note is shared with you; owners and admins have an activity log per vault.

Privacy and security

• End-to-end encrypted: note text, titles, file and folder names, attachments, vault names and icons, presence and your settings. The server only stores ciphertext and can't read any of it.
• Every note has its own key; removing someone renews the keys in the same step, and when someone leaves on their own the owners' apps renew them next time they're online. Sharing a note never gives away its earlier history. Owners can also renew a vault's key by hand.
• The vault's owners sign who belongs to it, and every change is signed by its author, so even a compromised server can't add people or forge edits.
• Key fingerprints to check who you share with, and a loud warning when someone's key changes.
• New devices are approved from one you already use (with a verification code) or unlocked with your recovery key; any browser can be forgotten. Approving the command line's sign-in shows when, and from which address, it was asked for. See where you're signed in and sign out remotely, and make a new recovery key whenever you need one.
• Sign in with your own identity provider (OIDC: Authelia, Keycloak, Authentik, …).

Offline, and your own tools

• The browser keeps an encrypted copy of your vaults: they open at once, and what you write offline syncs later. Optionally the app starts without the server too.
• A command-line client (CLI) with a local encrypted copy, live sync, and a two-way folder of plain Markdown files for Obsidian, Neovim, VS Code or anything else (how).
• The command line does everything: list, read, write, search, move, icons, trash, history, quick notes, sharing, archiving, key rotation, devices and recovery keys, import and export — also while its sync daemon runs. Shell completions for bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell and elvish.
• notekpr setup sets a computer up in one go: signs in, takes the folder for your Markdown files (an Obsidian vault already there comes along) and keeps it in sync in the background.
• Import folders of Markdown and zip files (an Obsidian vault, say) with their attachments; export a vault as plain .md files any time.
• Import from Notion: export a page or database as HTML there (⋯ → Export, with subpages) and bring its .zip in (Import notes → Import from Notion…), one piece after another, each into a folder of its own (Notion, Notion 2, …). What it holds is shown first, to choose from. Pages become notes, those with subpages folders; databases folders of notes, their properties in front matter, with a note holding a table of the rows; tasks checklists; links between pages wiki links, also to pages that come in a later piece; files in attachments/ beside the notes showing them. What came already isn't imported again, and a note, Imported from Notion, lists what didn't come along.
• Moving to another server: export the vaults you choose and your quick notes as one .zip (Settings → Account → Data), and import it there — the vaults come back with their folders, files and icons; the new server starts fresh, without history, comments or shares. Then delete your account on the old one, if you like (also from the command line).
• Never locked in: an encrypted export plus your recovery key turn back into plain files without the server or the apps (recovery).

For AI agents

• Agents get their own identity and keys and see only the vaults you share with them. They work through the CLI, a Markdown folder or a local HTTP gateway with an audit log (agents).
• Create agents, give them new secrets, revoke or delete them in Settings or from the CLI.

Running it

• One Rust server with SQLite; Docker Compose or Kubernetes, behind the reverse proxy you choose for TLS (optional examples for Caddy, Traefik and nginx).
• Attachments in a folder, in S3 or anything compatible (several servers can share a bucket, each under its own prefix), or inside the database for one-file backups; existing ones move there by themselves.
• Updates without fuss: the server tells connected apps it's restarting; they keep working and are back about a second after it is.
• Backups, upgrades, Prometheus metrics, and an admin page for accounts (make admins, disable accounts), server statistics and the server's version — never content; size limits for changes, snapshots and attachments.
• Instance settings that change without a restart: limits on accounts, agents and vaults, vaults, agents and quick notes per person (with each person's own allowance), drawings per vault (with a vault's own), a read-only mode the apps ride out — edits are kept and sent when it ends —, a size for the whole server, database and files (at it, every vault takes no new content until something is deleted for good or the size is raised: the room a family or a team shares on its own server), and the oldest app version it accepts: older apps are told to update and keep their unsent edits.
• Storage per vault: a size each vault may take, by default and for one vault. A full vault takes no new content — its members' edits wait in their apps and go out once it has room — while every other vault goes on; emptying its trash makes room at once. Members see a vault's id and how much of its room it uses in its settings, and give the id to ask for more; the admin page lists vaults by size with their ids and owners, never their names. Each person's Personal storage (quick notes, saved shapes) has a size of its own, by default and for one person. From the admin page, or from scripts (a billing system, say) as admin clients: each with its own scopes and tokens, rotated and revoked without a restart, and never reaching a vault. An instance can leave everything to them and have no administrators among its people (operations).
• A load test you can watch (task load): a crowd of simulated people — real clients with real encryption — growing level by level to a thousand, against the server image with CPU and memory limits, an outage in every level, a GAME OVER when it can't keep up, and a check that nothing was lost; choose the run on its start screen, with people busier than anyone or as busy as real ones, against a server here or one elsewhere (load test).
• A development mode where anyone can sign in as anyone (one session per browser tab) to try sharing and collaboration in one browser, and a demo with users, shared vaults and notes ready to explore (task demo).
• No npm and no third-party JavaScript: the browser client is Rust compiled to WebAssembly.

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